Hello Everyone!

Hi there everyone,

Well, this is the quiet little corner of the website where I get to talk about some of the things I care about outside of music.

I wrote the original version of this page many years ago, and when I recently read it again it made me smile. A lot has happened since then — quite a few more trips around the sun for a start — but interestingly, many of the things I cared about then I still care about today.

So I thought rather than get rid of this page, I’d give it a bit of a refresh.

No preaching, no telling anyone how they should live their life. Just a few thoughts about things that matter to me.

ANIMALS

I've been vegetarian for 23 years and vegan for the past 10 years, and it's become a very important part of who I am.

Apparently this shouldn't have come as much of a surprise. My mother once told me that even as a child she had difficulty getting me to eat meat. Growing up in rural Ireland, where boiled bacon, cabbage and potatoes were practically part of the DNA, this probably made me a bit of an oddity.

Although, to be completely honest, I wasn't much good at eating vegetables either, so perhaps I was just a difficult child!

My decision to first become vegetarian, and eventually vegan, was really about animals and the way we treat them.

I have friends and family who eat meat and that's absolutely their choice. I've never wanted this page — or anything else I say about it — to become a lecture about what somebody else should or shouldn't eat.

What matters enormously to me, though, is how animals are treated during their lives and at the end of their lives.

If people choose to eat meat, I think asking where it came from, how the animal lived and how it was treated is important. Even small changes in the choices we make can ultimately make a difference.

Years ago on this page I wondered what would happen if everyone who ate meat simply chose one day a week not to.

I still think that's an interesting thought.

But I do think there is hope and light too.

Vegetarianism and veganism have become far more visible and accepted, and more and more people seem to be questioning our relationship with animals and the choices we make about food.

I sometimes wonder how future generations will look back at us.

I fear they may be shocked and deeply saddened by the way we humans treated animals — particularly when we knew that they could experience fear, pain and suffering.

That's a very sad thought.

But perhaps the fact that so many people are now asking these questions, changing their habits and thinking differently about animals is also a reason to be hopeful.

Change rarely happens overnight. Sometimes it begins simply by caring enough to question what we've always done.

And I think that's where the hope is.

THIS PLANET OF OURS

I suppose the older I get, the more I find myself thinking about this extraordinary little planet we're all sharing.

The environment, climate change, wars, the way we treat animals, and sometimes simply the way we treat each other.

It can be very easy to look at what's happening in the world and feel overwhelmed by it all. Some days the news can make you wonder whether we've learned anything at all.

But strangely, I haven't lost hope.

I still believe there is far more kindness in the world than we sometimes get to see. It's there in ordinary people doing ordinary things — looking after someone, rescuing an animal, planting a tree, helping a stranger, checking on a neighbour, or simply choosing kindness when it would be easier not to.

I'm certainly no expert on how to save the planet, and I'm probably as guilty as anyone of getting things wrong.

But I do believe the little things matter.

None of us can fix everything.

But all of us can do something.

And maybe if we cared just a little more — about the planet, about animals, about the people we share it with, and about the generations who will inherit it from us — we'd be heading in a better direction.

For all the things in the world that frighten and sadden me, I still believe in hope.

I think we have to.

THE OTHER STUFF

Life hasn't always travelled in a straight line for me.

I've lived with depression for many years, and I've never really felt the need to hide that. It's been part of my journey and, at different times, it has affected my life, my relationships, my work and the way I've seen the world around me.

There have been wonderful times in my life, and there have also been periods when simply getting through the day could feel like an achievement.

I think one of the things I've learned is that depression doesn't always look the way people imagine it does. You can be working, laughing, writing songs, standing on a stage or surrounded by people you love and still be quietly struggling inside.

For me, music has always been there somewhere.

Sometimes I've written songs without really understanding what I was trying to say until much later. Looking back, I realise that songwriting has probably allowed me to express things I couldn't always find the words for in ordinary life.

And maybe that's one of the reasons I've kept writing all these years.

I'm certainly not pretending to have all the answers. I don't.

But I do know that difficult times can pass. Life can change. Something you can't see a way through today can look very different further down the road.

And there is always another song to write, another morning to wake up to, another conversation to have, another person to love, another reason to keep going.

For me, that's worth remembering.

HOME

After spending so many years away from Ireland, I somehow found my way home.

And, in a turn of events I definitely couldn't have predicted, home turned out to be an old church on a tiny island in Co. Cavan.

I certainly didn't see that one coming!

When I first found Quivvy Church, it needed an enormous amount of love, imagination and, as I would discover, patience. Restoring it became much more than a building project. Somewhere along the way, this beautiful old place became part of my life.

Today it's my home, my recording studio and the place where I write.

It's peaceful here. A little eccentric. Occasionally freezing. And probably slightly mad.

But I love it.

There's something about living in an old building that has already existed for generations before you arrived. You become very aware that you're really only looking after it for a while.

I like that thought.

There are trees, water, wildlife, music, an old church full of stories and usually a song somewhere waiting to be finished.

After years of airports, hotels, studios, motorways, cities and constantly being somewhere else, I've grown to appreciate stillness much more than I once did.

Sometimes I'll sit here and think about the strange road that brought me from Ahane, to London, Nashville and all the places in between — and eventually back to a little island in Ireland.

Life is funny like that.

You spend years travelling around the world looking for where you're supposed to be...

and sometimes you end up finding it at home.

AND FINALLY...

I suppose this quiet little corner of the website will always be a bit of a work in progress — rather like the person writing it.

I'll probably add things here from time to time. Things I care about, things that make me happy, things that make me angry, things that make me laugh, and perhaps the occasional completely random thought that seemed terribly important at the time!

You certainly don't have to agree with everything I say.

In fact, I'm not even sure I agree with everything I've said over the years!

We're all learning, changing and hopefully understanding a little more about ourselves and each other as we go along.

But if something you've read here makes you think, makes you smile, gives you a little hope, or perhaps makes you look at something in a slightly different way, then I'm glad you stopped by.

And if you've made it all the way to the bottom of the page, you definitely deserve a cup of tea.

Thanks a mill for dropping into my quiet little corner of the world.

Take care of yourselves — and each other.

Don x